£1 million skills centre opens in Manchester

A new £1 million skills centre has been opened by Minister for the Northwest Beverley Hughes who stressed the importance of the Government’s agenda of investment in training to meet the region’s economic needs in the future.

The Greater Manchester Skillcentre in Trafford Park, Manchester will benefit over 1,000 trainees every year in areas that are important to the local economy such as engineering, gas services and construction.

This week the Government launched its New Opportunities White Paper, which sets out how families and communities can be helped through these difficult economic times and ensure that everyone – no matter what their background – has the chance of a better future.

Measures in the New Opportunities White Paper include:

* Creating 35,000 new apprenticeships by 2013
* An injection of £57 million to extend free childcare for disadvantaged two year olds. Research shows that early help in some of the most disadvantaged communities is rewarded with improved language development, social skills and behaviour.
* Head teachers able to offer a new package to attract the best teachers into challenging schools including a £10,000 bonus for three years services.
* Establishing a panel that will identify and remove the barriers that prevents fair access to professional jobs.
* £500 back to work training entitlements for parents and carers

Commenting on the centre, Beverley Hughes said: “This fantastic state of the art centre will make a big difference to ensuring that people from Greater Manchester can be better equipped with key skills and practical experience to respond to the fast moving changes in the economy to meet new business needs.

“The challenge we face is that within the next decade the number of unskilled jobs will reduce significantly, and our people will need higher levels of skills to compete with other rising economies, especially China and India. We must ensure that the Northwest workforce is not left behind.

“We must unlock talent, upgrade skills and back innovation so that we can create a new role for Britain in the global economy and prevent untapped and wasted talent. “The ‘New Opportunities’ White Paper spells out real help now for better opportunities in the future, with more investment – by government, public and private sectors – in people: their skills, training and futures.

“Only this will secure the best economy for Britain and ensure every individual, family and community gets the chance they deserve to do well.”